


Once Upon A Time In Fandom Discourse

by Anonymous



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Antisemitism, Gen, Meta Fic, Racism, Yellowfacing is Still Bad kids, do not use the suffering of Jewish people for your straw man PLEASE, technically I can call this fandom RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:48:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28554897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: How to say you don’t like a particular fandom phenomena without appearing like a blatant online bully? BUZZWORD BUZZWORD BUZZWORD.
Comments: 24
Kudos: 64
Collections: Anonymous





	Once Upon A Time In Fandom Discourse

Once upon a time in a fandom on the internet, there was a fan with a headcanon.

This was fine, because canon is lacking and every fan deserves to be able to enhance their own fandom experience with their own interpretations of the source material which they can then share so other people could also enjoy their take on a beloved piece of fictional media. 

But this fan had a problem! While she and many people enjoyed their headcanon and interpretations of the source material, there were other fans making other content that this fan did not find enjoyable. The content created by the other fans was ‘tacky’ or too confusing. This fan thought it would be better if those other fans stopped creating that content.

But how to do that?

She couldn’t just  _ say _ that she thought their content sucked and they should stop making it because she didn’t like it! That’s mean, bullying behaviour!

People wouldn’t agree with her if she said that!

The fan needed a solution, and she knew just the thing!

You see, an unfortunate reality of this fandom was that the source material was created and developed by an old, white, Christian man and because of this there were many, many instances of racism, sexism, and antisemitism in the source material.

Some fans tried their best to create content that confronted these problematic elements in the source material— to create a richer, more complex world while addressing the problems so that their fandom experiences weren’t tainted by the same hateful rhetoric that is so prevalent in the real world.

Some fans didn’t see what all the fuss was about— it’s just a fantasy, a science fiction! It’s not that serious! Those other fans were just reading too much into nothing at all! Who cares about racism, sexism, and antisemitism in a FICTIONAL world, amirite? People should just shut up and respect the source material.

And some fans didn’t care all that much either way. Maybe they’re not as invested in the fandom, maybe they have other things on their minds, or maybe they thought that while there were problematic elements in the source material, as long as they said they didn’t support that view, then they were in the clear! After all, racism, sexism, and antisemitism are all bad things! And these fans don’t support bad things! That’s just logical.

Well, this fan knew a few things about how the source material was littered with problematic elements! Racism, sexism, and antisemitism  _ are _ bad— and she knew just what to say so that those other fans creating the cringey content that she didn’t like would look bad!

Here’s what she decided to do:

She would write an essay!

She would explain her valid grievance with the source material: the main good guys share many cultural and religious similarities with those found in the Asian diaspora and fandom had a worrying habit of demonising these similarities! Furthermore, the very foundations of the characterisation for the good guys are rooted in blatant Orientalism and a very shallow understanding of ancient cultural and religious practices. Fans need to acknowledge that the creator of the source material took a very commercial and popular view when creating the good guys, and while he may have failed to respect the inspiration for his characters, the fans could do better! The fans  _ should _ do better!

That’s a very valid analysis of the source material and the fandom! She was correct, and many people rightly agreed!

But that was just the intro! Now that she had everyone’s attention, she had to direct them to how those other fans creating the cringey content that she didn’t like were  _ bad! _

So, have you heard of conlangs? That’s short for ‘constructed language’ and it’s the term given to languages created for fictional people, like Klingon in Star Trek, or Sindarin in Lord of the Rings! It’s pretty cool and special, right? It means your favourite characters can have a special language that’s a part of their fictional culture— it gives them a history and depth that feels real, right? Plus, when you enjoy something that doesn’t have a lot of canon content, it makes sense that you’d like to create that content! 

Well, this fan didn’t feel the same way.

Did you know that conlangs are Othering?

That means that giving a fictional group of people their own language marks them out as being Different. It draws lines of similarity between the group of good guys and people who are yucky and strange, like foreigners or other fictional bad guys with their own conlangs!

“But wait,” you say. “Aren’t the good guys already marked out as being Different in canon?”

They are.

“And,” you continue. “Wouldn’t the good guys having their own language make sense in the context that they’re a fairly isolated religious sect with members from across a very large galaxy who are bound together by their community-style upbringing and education?”

Sure would, wouldn’t it.

“Also,” you ponder. “If the good guys having their own language is Othering... what does that say about everyone else in the galaxy? Do they all speak the same language?”

Well, the source material for this fandom is quite thin when it comes to fictional languages! Off the top of my head, I can think of six main languages that are mentioned in the source material with any sort of regularity. Only one of them has seen any development in canon sources (or canon sources before the new corporate owners axed everything but the movies and cartoons), and the rest are only mentioned in passing or used almost exclusively by gangsters.

Oh, and if you’re wondering about the lingua franca of the Entire Galaxy, that’s called ‘galactic standard’ or ‘Basic’. But to you and me, it’s treated as... English.

“Hang on,” you say.

Yup.

“Wait, wait—” you continue.

Uh-huh.

“Isn’t that worse?! Everyone in the Entire Galaxy speaks the ‘galactic standard’ a.k.a. English but anyone with their own language is seen as ‘Other’? Isn’t that just  _ real world _ racism?”

It sure is!

“It also seems like a huge failing from the source material,” you gripe.

That too.

“But then they’re saying that everyone trying to fix the ‘Entire Galaxy speaks English’ problem is Othering an already marginalised group of people?”

It’s certainly a blanket statement.

“So does their argument have any nuance?” you ask.

Oh, they try their best.

You see, our fan with a problem isn’t a linguist themselves. They can’t argue technical details on the various points of grammar and phonology and morphology etc that go into creating a Whole New Language (though they sure try!).

But! They  _ do _ think it’s suspicious that this new conlang those other fans have come up with doesn’t include any elements from East Asian languages!

“That sounds reasonable, why is that?” you ask.

Well that other group of fans are linguists and hobbyists working together to create a conlang for a fictional group of people, and they don’t personally speak any East Asian languages. Meaning— they don’t have the in-depth knowledge of any East Asian language that they might apply to the behemoth task of creating an entirely new language. So they focused on what they know.

“Well that makes sense,” you say. “It wouldn’t be very cool to haphazardly include a language you didn’t fully understand that works on a completely different linguistic system into your project just for the sake of inclusion. That would seem like very obvious pandering.”

Yeah, like that scene from that one movie where all the female characters spontaneously showed up to help a skinny white boy even though over half of them hadn’t ever even  _ been on screen together _ or even  _ spoken _ to each other before, or again after the scene was over.

“Cringe.”

Tell me about it.

“So, what’s the problem again?”

Not only is a conlang ‘Othering’ and bad in an environment where ‘Space English’ is treated as the universal standard, but the fact that the conlang is not sufficiently Asian because none of the creators know any Asian languages is racist and shows Anti-Asian bias in the fandom specifically when it comes to the good guy characters.

Oh, I can see your face. Yes, it does sound like a bit of a reach when you put it like that, doesn’t it?

“So do they have any other arguments?” you ask again.

Well, they do have a tangent about how rewriting a Jewish name to have meaning in a conlang is ‘not to their taste’ a.k.a. it’s antisemitic.

“Wait, roll back on that— what? When did antisemitism enter this equation?”

Well. The Jewish name in question is Ben.

And the conlang fans changed the meaning of the name so that it meant something else in their fictional conlang. Which our fan here finds ‘not to their taste’ a.k.a. antisemitic.

“That implies that Judaism exists in this fictional universe,” you say.

It does not.

“But Ben isn’t just a Jewish name? Lots of non-Jewish people have that name.”

Yes, but their reasoning is that the name was chosen specifically by the old white Christian man creator to reflect the similarities between the genocide of the fictional character’s people and the Actual genocide of Jewish people that happened during the Holocaust.

“Hang on— that part of the canon wasn’t decided until at least twenty years after the name Ben was chosen for the character!”

Yeah.

“So, how are they sure that it’s antisemitic?”

Well, that ties into another essay they wrote.

“Oh, another one?”

Yup.

This time about how the fandom had specifically chosen to depict this character as coming from a planet that was similar to his actor’s home country because there are no canon sources, and also having a background similar to his actor in Modern AUs and how that erased the Asian influences of his character. Like his blatantly nonsense Asian-sounding name.

Don’t worry, I’ll explain.

So you know how the basis of the good guy characters’ culture is steeped in Orientalism? And how they have nonsense names with no real-world meanings that sound really Asian? And how that one good guy character was given a Jewish name about twenty years before the bit of his history where his people suffered a genocide was decided?

Well, our fan posits that it’s quite racist how the fandom has chosen to base his fictional home planet on the actor’s home country because there is no canon information on his fictional home planet and how for Modern AUs the fandom likes to change his Asian-sounding nonsense name to Ben! 

Because nobody has ever done that before when writing Modern AUs about a fictional character with an Improbable Name.

Also! In Modern AUs, it’s also antisemitic how when they change his name to Ben, they don’t actually make him Jewish? Because his people also suffered a genocide in canon and obviously the most important part of the Jewish Experience is how the Holocaust happened?

“So, do they have a solution?” you ask.

Right, well— in that other essay she argues that because one of the good guys has a blatantly nonsense Asian-sounding name, that fandom should depict him as Asian, or I suppose... ‘white-passing Asian’? You know. Like he’s mixed race, or something. Oh! Or he was adopted by Asians, or raised in the culture, or some other way to make him ‘ethnically’ Asian. 

“But... doesn’t that character have two canon movie actors, both of whom are white?”

Yeah, the whitest white actors to be found, actually. So, logically, without any canon information on the character’s ethnic background (besides the fictional, pseudo-Asian community-based culture he was adopted into and raised in), the fandom chose to co-opt one of the actors’ ethnic backgrounds to use for his home planet instead. The Scottish one, if you were wondering. 

And this is another example of Anti-Asian bias in the fandom. Because his home planet should be Asian-influenced. Because of his blatantly nonsense Asian-sounding name (which is different from the pseudo-Asian culture in which he was raised).

“And they’re saying... that fandom should explicitly depict this character as Asian... even though the only physical description of him for around 40 years has explicitly been white? And both his actors are Very White?”

Yeah.

“But that’s— that’s the definition of yellowfacing!” you cry.

Oh, absolutely.

“But that’s ridiculous— surely people have pointed out how problematic that is? How problematic this whole thing is?”

No, lots of people actually agree with it.

“Oh. Oh, wow. Okay, I give up.”

Yeah, me too.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Mondays, amirite?


End file.
